The base was quiet, muffled beneath a blanket of white. Snowflakes drifted lazily through the gray sky, settling on rooftops and piling in uneven heaps along the walkways. It was the kind of snowfall that swallowed up sound, leaving only the crunch of boots and the soft hiss of wind.

“Out. All of you,” Price had ordered that morning, practically herding the Task Force out of the warm rec room like a man tired of staring at the same four walls. He stood on the steps now, cigar clenched between his teeth, watching his team squint against the chill like disgruntled children dragged out for fresh air.

You stood shoulder to shoulder with the others in the courtyard, breath puffing white, each man looking just as out of place as you felt. Ghost loomed with his hands stuffed deep in his coat pockets, mask stark against the snow. Soap shifted from foot to foot, muttering under his breath about frostbite. Gaz hunched into his jacket, scowling at the sky as though personally offended by the weather. Roach just crouched a little, watching, hands shoved deep into his gloves, quiet as ever.

It was awkward. Painfully awkward. Veterans of countless wars standing around in snow like they didn’t know what to do with it.

Then—fwump!

A snowball smacked clean into Gaz’s shoulder, exploding into powder.

His head snapped up, disbelief written across his face. Soap stood a few feet away, smirk curling, another handful of snow already packing between his palms. “What?” Soap called innocently. “You look like you needed warmin’ up!”

The second snowball flew before anyone could react, clipping Gaz’s chest.

That was the spark.

“Alright, you asked for it!” Gaz barked, scooping up his own ammunition and whipping it back. Soap ducked with a laugh, the ball exploding against Ghost’s sleeve instead.

Slowly, like a glacier cracking, Ghost’s head turned toward Gaz. The rookies on the perimeter held their breath. Nobody—nobody—hit Ghost with a snowball and lived to tell the tale.

Except Ghost bent down, scooped a perfect, deliberate sphere of snow, and launched it across the yard with sniper precision. It nailed Gaz in the back of the head.

Chaos followed.

Soap whooped, diving behind a snowdrift. Gaz shouted something unprintable and retaliated. You found yourself dragged into the mess instantly, snow spraying as you ducked behind a low wall for cover. Roach moved like a ghost, slipping from one drift to the next, scooping and firing with machine-gun precision. He didn’t laugh, didn’t shout—just pegged Soap over and over until Soap was spluttering in the snow, “Bloody hell, he’s targetin’ me!”

The worst part? Roach was terrifyingly accurate. Headshots, every time.

Even Price, muttering about “bloody children,” flicked his cigar into the snow and lobbed a casual snowball into the crowd—knocking Soap flat on his ass to a chorus of laughter.

The rookies stood by the windows, wide-eyed, watching the legends of Task Force 141 wage the fiercest snowball fight in history. Ghost, the shadowed specter of the battlefield, was sprinting across the yard with his coat flapping, nailing Gaz square in the ribs. Soap was rolling in the snow, cackling and cursing Roach’s “bloody assassin’s aim.” You were half-laughing, half-shrieking as a perfectly compact snowball from Roach smacked the back of your head.

Snow flew like gunfire. Shouts and laughter replaced orders and silence. For once, the battlefield was harmless, the war fought in cold and joy.

And for a few stolen hours, Task Force 141 wasn’t the most dangerous unit in the world. They were just people—frozen, ridiculous, and alive.